About to really start writing
again. Taking a break from the fine art painting I’ve been doing for months and
turning the painting studio into a writing office/studio/nook. It will be a
place of great positivity and hope…I hope. Flowers are there now. A plant I’ll
name Roger. He just looks like a Roger. I am 50 pages into a new book I’m
calling The Flying McGreevys about a family that travels in a Winnebago and
performs stunts on motorcycles and various other contraptions to wow the
audiences of Americans in the 70’s. It was a time in which a person could jump
a motorcycle over a whole bunch of stuff and if he lived, anything was
possible. All you had to do was
take that risk over and over again. Our protag, Ty McGreevy has a lot going on
in his head as he watches his brother become a star and his father a legend.
The family “Winny” he gets to jump each night is small and embarrassing and
he’s fifteen now for crying out loud, such a small inconsequential jump, but it
leaves him a lot of time at night to roam these various fairgrounds and
carnivals and freak tents and soon he learns and understands where his brother,
and family, are really headed.

The publicity train for my second
novel Peep Show is warming up and I can feel that the summer will be unlike any
I’ve ever had. In normal life, here at home, I am a dad of two, a girl and a
boy, 6 and 9 respectively. My wife and I just got them Guinea Pigs because, it
turns out, we’re subconsciously being prepared to be dog owners. I grew up
loving a special dog but my wife only had “outdoor cats”, otherwise knows as
“feral cats.” No nuzzling, no unspoken understanding of their owner’s daily
problems. My dog, Lucy, a mixed schnauzer and poodle I received for my 10th
birthday, understood fully that my young soul was one that would need to absorb
all the pathos I was breathing and one day turn it into something other than
melancholy. We did it together, although she needed to be put to sleep while I
was living in Tokyo in 1991. I loved her and I dream of her still today. She
will certainly be in the eyes of whatever puppy we bring into our home in the
coming months. A little and oh so quick story about parenthood. I would rate
this a 9 out of ten on the “Okay kids, you may or may not be old enough for
this lesson, but, just know I didn’t invent any of this, and here we go.” Two
baby Guinea Pigs are at the local pet shop. My mother, with her grandchildren,
my kids, calls me and says they’re gorgeous, you have to get them. I’ll pay for
everything. I actually say, NO, thanks, it’s not the best time, I have a lot
going on and the notion of cleaning up newspaper with Guinea Pigs urine on it
is not what I had in mind, for say, this weekend. After we hang up, I remember
the rabbits, the many rabbits my mother brought home when I was a young
boy.A male, a female, and then
not long after, many, many rabbits that were tiny vulnerable babies that yes,
at one point were eaten by their mother due to the fear she apparently felt by
what, not sure. My mom says wild dogs in the woods behind us. I can’t remember
if I believed they ate them because, I, personally got too close to them or if
it just sounds really dramatic and achingly sad now. Let’s say to be safe, that
I never felt the guilt of the baby rabbit’s deaths. But, the mother’s still
killed the babies and this always stayed with me. Cut to my house, Feb of 2010
and my mother has now called my wife and gotten a YES, SURE, BRING ‘EM ON HOME
from the girl who had feral pets and has never and will never touch a newspaper
saturated with animal piss of any kind. I guess we’re getting pets.Okay, I see them, they’re unusual I’m
told, jet black, soft, nice, and one of the baby sisters has a white spot near
it’s butt, that’s funny, she’s cute, okay, I’m liking them, they like lettuce,
it crunches, that’s cute, look at their teeth, those two big teeth, no Honey,
she doesn’t need a hat. Don’t Honey. Sweetie. Okay, that is a little cute.
Stop, it’s cruel. This one has a chunky stomach, a bulge, feel that? Weird. My
wife looks up Guinea Pig gas online. Sister two has what is called “Critter
Farts.” Terrific, I’m the one who said NO THANKS and now we got an agitated and
bloated “Critter.” Critter Farts starts looking worse and the other sister is
pissed now and running around the cage in circles. All of us are trying to
sooth the sisters now, using all the words and tones we save for babies and the
really elderly. They soon get quiet and retreat to the wooden house we bought
them. It isn’t until about noon the next day that my wife sees what looks a lot
like a really itsy bitsy version of our new pet, only this one has what the
Guinea Pig website calls “Guinea Pig Placenta” all over its surprisingly hairy
body.

“What’s that?” she says squinting
and pointing at it.

What? That? The thing with the
Guinea Pig placenta all over it? Why Dear, I believe, upon further observation,
that a newborn Guinea Pig just dropped out of our “not so gassy anymore” baby
Guinea Pig. To make a really weird story weirder, your guess-timation that
sister number one is in fact brother number one, is incorrect. If you guessed
that there was a brother with the sisters before they got to the pet store,
before my mother “rescued them” and before they came to live in my house, you
would be dead on. What’s that you say, the brother knocked-up the sister who
was a baby herself. Okay. Got it. Got it, kids? Is this clear now? This
“nature” experience aimed at educating my children has now imbedded in them
some life lessons that only Shakespeare himself could evoke in words.

INCEST – Just fine for Guinea Pigs,
in fact, the offspring of this moral wackiness end up thriving in life,
becoming well established and well liked accountants and dentists.

THE KILLING AND EATING OF ONES
OFFSPRING -Sure lions are famous
for this but Guinea Pigs who have something like, 75% of the same DNA we do,
will snack on baby if it feels baby will be slaughtered by some other means.
See horrific rabbit lesson from earlier.

HOMOSEXUALITY – When sister two
gave birth she also became officially “in heat,” so her twin sister, who would
need to be separated, tried to hump her straight through the floorboards. We
would later learn that it was a gesture of dominance and not so much another
example of moral insanity. So let’s recap. Humping FINE, eating babies BAD.

Hey, I’m very very, excited to head
out there and support my new novel Peep Show. My summer and fall tour dates
will be on my website, so, keep an ear out and see you soon.

Everytime I think about blogging, I
tell myself there’s more productive things to do. Like work. When I blog, I’m
sitting in the same position I am when I’m working so it always seems crazy to
blow an opportunity to work since I’m in the chair and all. I’m currently well
into another novel, believe it or not. Peep
Show my second is done and coming out June 1st 2010. So because
I’m a writer, I need to keep, ya know, writing and I find myself in a coffee
shop in Oakland-ish Berkeley and I got to tell you, I should be working but I’m
not. The untitled novel I’m working on may end up being my best. But of course,
I said that about my last and the one before that, remember, The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green.
Well, sure, of course I say the next will be the best. I’m aging, getting more
seasoned at this ridiculous craft that leaves you alone all the time. Well, not
all the time. I have a six and a nine year old and a 15 year marriage so I’m
not alone all the time at all. Just from 8:30 to 2:50, which leaves heaps of
time to make beautiful and rhythmic fiction. Some of you right now are saying I
want that, I want that, no not the kids and the wife, I mean I want all day to
be alone and write stuff. Yeah, that’s what I want. I don’t want the routine I
have, you might be thinking, the one where you get up, shower, eat, drive to
the place you make money, say hi to Rob and Nick and Joanne, have lunch with
Rob because he bet on Blah Blah and you bet on Glah Glah and his team won so
you owe him that meal, remember that lunch you owe him. You don’t want to be
there, at In and Out with Rob. His breath is awful and he does that swagger
thing with the wink when he talks about the girls he “boffed” in college. You
want to be alone so you can write the great American tome. They say the
sophomore novel is the hardest to write and I’ll just say it was taxing but the
result is something I’m super F-ing proud of. What I’m doing now, writing wise,
is feeling very free to fly with my characters and every idea that pops is a
possibility so it’s nothing at all like the last experience which held so much
complexity in its inception. The task now is to write a lot and think
complexity later. I think because I survived the second book, I can now enjoy
the confidence that I made it through and this leads to the flow I’m feeling,
the ease with which these characters want to come to life. This, I guess, is
the reward for fighting my ass of to make Peep
Show the book it is. But you don’t know yet. Because it doesn’t come out
until June. Does this blog feel a little advertise-ish. I don’t want it to. I
see that my last blog discussed the Phillys and the world series so here we are
again, the Philly’s are in the first tier of the playoffs against the Rockies.
They start in about ten minutes so I think it’s time to go feel guilty about watching
baseball instead of writing my next novel, instead of feeling guilty for blogging instead of writing
my next novel. Wait, wait, I have one more thought. It’s about God.

Let’s say God is your own
conscience.

In this theory, if you stub your
toe after being unkind to someone for the sake of the unkindness, it is not God
who tripped you up, but you.

We are brilliant because of our
brains.But it is not in our
species’ ability to understand the chemistry of the brain fully. Dreams, love,
sorrow, fear, memory, conscience – you need more than language to describe the
natural firing of human life.

Millions, upon million of
consciences on a planet that’s in constant alchemic reaction with matter whose
intentions are so epically and unapologetically immense that our species is
forced to use math to describe it. Math is language. But it’s not an expressive
one. Or a tragic one. Sometimes the answer is just, 6.

We are meant to describe in story.

The unanswered questions of how we
got here and what our individual purposes are, leave us with great and even
grave anxiety. Why? How? And when will it all end?

We need God because he’s a person
you can see. I don’t mean see. But you know, he has a beard and huge hands and
talks really deep. He’s the face of the swirling chemistry. He’s the best we can
do.

November arrives and it's already the 12th and people are talking of Thanksgiving and even Christmas and I'm trying to figure out what happened to October. Maybe it was the anticipation of the election that made the entire month disappear. I aged during October, yes, I recall that, the candles and the love from my kids and a new turntable from my loving sibling, Dr. John Dorian. Yes, on the 11th I became older than almost every professional athlete that ever played any game ever. Thank you, Jamie Moyer. Thank you for staying older than me. And congrats on a well deserved ring in Philly. It helps that people say Obama is young at 47. Young for the presidency , sure, but can he still do ten pushups? I've never once wrote about politics in this blog because I truly hate politics. Yes, I understand the importance of government. It's one of the perks of procreating – a sudden, and innate need for global peace. But the WWF aspect of what's required to win an election in America is as petty as a hair-pulling montage on The Best of Jerry Springer. Turns out, if you have nothing to run on, you're left to attack the other opponent and the reason for this is that until election day, anything remains possible. So many media outlets, so much room for the spin, a Muslim, a swift boat, a toke of weed, plagiarism, Marla Maples on your lap. "Smile!" But, man, is it good to see W. go away or what? Not hell. Just some ranch somewhere, where he can design the Bush library in silence. "I want a dartboard with Obama's face on it. I mean Osama. I did again, damn!" A lot of people forget that Bush was "the man" when the planes first fell. New Jersey born, I knew three people that perished in 9/11. I remember seeing George when it all went down and thinking, go man, go use all that testosterone and pent up rage you used when you executed nearly all the people in Texas as governor. Go gas up all those jet fighters and tanks and aircraft carriers because the only way to make sense of terrorism is to terrorize right the hell back. Do it for the boy I played little league with in the early eighties who died in the trade center and do it for the woman that told me she had a great book idea just a month before her plane went down in a field in Pennsylvania. And he did, he fired up all the military toys and, well, you've seen how it all went down. Frank Rich of the New York Times said that Obama's win, and I'm paraphrasing, has created the exact optimism and hope that Dick Cheney hoped for in Iraq when the war began. In eight long years, I don't recall Dick ever promoting anything even close to hope or optimism. Fear was the mantra, and it was sprayed at us relentlessly, for so many years. In fact, when W. had an opportunity to speak after Obama won, his first thoughts were about the vulnerability we as Americans will be prone to as this transition in the white house occurs.

Don't know about you but I welled up when it became clear Obama would win. And everyone I saw the next day said it happened to them too. Crying over politics? Was I that sickened and unhappy with George and team? Yes. Did I start to fear I'd be forced to see Sarah Palin's face for the next 4 years? I did. Or was it all the death? Soldiers and non-soldiers, civilians doing exactly what people have been doing in wars for centuries - Dying in the name of dollars or God. People were being killed in the name of God about a week after God was elected. Yes, he won Florida. As cutting edge as our species seems at times there will always be war and or genocide occurring somewhere on our planet. And that is a horrendous pill to swallow.

Sorry if you're political beliefs are different than mine and all this comes off preachy and tiresome, the way every political pundit on God's green earth feels to me. I'm done now. A writer taps into his feelings by writing. If there are no feelings to tap into, there is nothing to write about. This election was unprecedented.

Want to hear about my new turntable? Good. I'm back in vinyl and I will tell you a very real truth. Records recorded pre-1985, sound better in vinyl than any other form aside from an actual live performance in your living room. Simon and Garfunkel, for example, has taken on a whole new meaning for me. I bought The Rolling Stone's Sticky Fingers the other day, and I don't think I've ever heard a better rock album in my life. The warmth of the sound is perhaps fueled by nostalgia to some degree, but more so, I believe, in the purity of the recordings of the time. This is why a band like Radiohead, who is famous for intricate and complex musicianship and sound-mining, is better on CD than vinyl. No albums pre-85. But if you put on any Led Zeppelin or Beatles or Bob Dylan or Elton John (which I've found in perfect condition for 1 or 2 dollars at Amoeba) it's an entirely new listening experience. Unfortunately, Death Cab For Cutey and the Killers and Jack Johnson and Kings of Leon and that guy Will.I.am who hologramed himself onto the CNN set, will always sound better on CD.

If you have no idea who I am: My first novel, The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green came out in 2004 and is available for all to enjoy.

My second novel, PeepShow (working title) has been delivered to my publisher and I await my editor's thoughts. A release date is not yet known.

As we make our descent into yet another holiday season, I wish you all the best and thank you for the kind and thoughtful letters and comments. It means a lot to hear from "Jacob Green" fans, especially because I've been holed-up for so long, banging out a new tale to tell. So thanks for sticking with me. I won't let you down.

Thought I’d write for either me or
you or anyone that will have me. A Thursday in Oakland, hot out but gorgeous,
just about 11AM, the beginning of September, 2008. Sorry for those of you
waiting for novel two. It will be out there, I promise, and it may be the best
thing I’ve ever written. How couldn’t it be, it’s taking me three lifetimes to
finish. Today I’d like to free-write, for the hell of it, just write about
anything that comes to mind. Tough week for sick kids in my house, blowing
booger shnots all over the place. If I don’t get sick it will be a miracle. The
way my life is set up right now, I’m the go-to parent when one of my two kids
is down for the count.Child two’s
symptoms are a very stuffed nose, half-closed eyelids like Garfield, a fever
that spikes at night and a marked irritability around dinner time. This
culminates in her barking at me and whining and sounding like the kind of lady
that leads men to drink warm whiskey from dirty shot glasses. My wife this week
is in Bejing on business. She is in the mobile gaming industry. Glu Mobile. So I
am solo which means I’ve blown my daughter’s nose 8, 456 times. Our process: I
hold the tissue over her nose and coach her, “Harder, again, nice, again.” I
pinch off the mashed green boogers, hand her another piece of tissue and she wipes the excess because the first
few times I killed her nostrils which are sore from all the blowing. She gave me
the dirtiest look I’ve ever received and we tried again. Now that she’s in
charge we are quite well rehearsed.We can do it in the dark and at any time of the evening, including
3:38AM, 2:06AM and three times before breakfast. Monday was a holiday and she
looked like a zombie so I had to keep her inside. Tuesday, no way, no school, still
riddled with sick and fever, only Motrin keeps her upbeat and normal. Wednesday
I take her to the doctor because the fever is dwindling but still there. Doc
says it’s a cold. I knew that. Why did I need to come to the doctor for that?
Strep throat, ear infection, Pneumonia? All possibilities when fever’s go this
long. I need to get a throat scope and an ear thingy and some Petri dishes and
set up my own lab. Can you imagine the savings? If most of you reading this are
teenagers, I’m sorry for the lame story. An interesting story about my “About
Me,” bio. As I was introducing myself to the Myspace world, I wrote about the
time I went to San Quentin to play baseball against a team of prisoners called
the SQ Giants. After seeing this, I
was contacted by the wife of an ex major league pitcher named Rich Rodriguez.
He played for the Giants, Dodgers and I think Angels and holds the distinct
honor of giving up the very first Barry Bonds’ homerun to splash into the San Francisco
Bay. Mcovey’s Cove, they call it, the pocket of water just over the right field
fence at Pac Bell Park or AT&T Park or whatever it’s called now, Whopper
with Fries Park.So, this very
kind woman, Mrs. Rodriguez, hello kind woman, contacted me and one thing led to
another and I hooked Rich up with some of my old teammates and he went on to
pitch against the prisoners of San Quentin. I believe the outcome was a 3-0 win
by the prisoners. I heard the SQ team all knew that they’d be facing a
professional pitcher and were very excited by it all. I was invited to play but
I’ve recently retired from the game of baseball. The Hall of Fame awaits. I now
play softball. Why? Who would pick SOFT balls if you could have HARD balls? The
answer: Go out on a baseball field
and stand on first base. On the count of three, run as fast as you can toward
second base and when you get close, throw your body on the ground in order to
slide into said base with your foot or fingertips. As you age, this particular
and oh so important aspect of baseball becomes more and more dangerous for the
health of the runner. Some guys play until their ninety and just stop
stealing…and running for that matter. The result. Softball.The most horribly named sport in all
the world. It’s mostly people who don’t play baseball or softball that giggle a
little when I tell them I play softball now. I tell them it’s more competitive
and fast and humbling than they might imagine. A lot like life. So corny.

It’s true, my first novel, The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green,
is still being read out there. I hear from many of you, telling me how much the
book has meant to you. I’d like to say thank you very much for your kind
thoughts.

Fyi – I’ve mentioned this before
but the adaptation for the film of the aforementioned book is finished and
currently being considered.

Nice, my daughter made it through
the school day with no issues. She’s in good spirits and her nose is crusty but
free of any noticeable snot. I tell her the name of the babysitter I’ve hired
for tonight and she doesn’t moan, she likes her, remembers her, yes, good. I
pick up my oldest, a third grader and he’s less excited. “I hate her.”

“Don’t say hate.”

“Where are you going?” he asks me.

“I have a softball game.”

“When will you be back?”

“Like nine.”

“I’ll wait up.”

“Maybe ten.”

“Can I sleep in your bed?”

“Fine.”

“All night?”

“I’ll move you when I get back.”

“Can I go to bed late?”

“No.”

“Can I skip the tub?”

“Yes.”

This has been a small play
entitled, “Parenting Involves Way More Negotiating Than I’d Ever Expected.”

When I get home from the game, both
kids are snoring in my bed, they’re legs and arms splayed over each other with
various stuffed animals pinned beneath them. It’s time to pick them up and put
them in their respective beds. The big one looks a man, or like a long
teenager. The last time I lifted him from a dead sleep my legs tingled in a
nervy way. Am I getting older or
is he getting bigger? I think his head alone might weigh as much as a
watermelon. Maybe if I lift him like a fireman would, over the shoulder. Or how
about I go get his scooter and glide him down the hallway. I got it, I’ll wake him and he can walk.
I reach to lift him and he says,
“I know, I know I will, Roger,” and I have no idea who he’s talking to. Just forget
it. I’ll sleep in his bed.

We're having a heat wave in the SF Bay Area. Yeah, it's muy caliente for F-ing sure. How much sweat can pour from one man's forehead? A gallon? I must have the most fit forehead in all the land. My forehead could walk the red carpet in

Hollywood

right now and have no issue being judged negatively by celebrity fashion experts like my former high school classmate, Robert Verdi, who we used to call Bobby. I saw him at my high school reunion in '06 and he was tall and handsome with no hair and really nice sunglasses perched on his browridge. After we embraced he said I looked like a "heaping lump of dog crap." No, he didn't but it would have made for a better story. So it's been a while since I wrote and I want to say thank you very much to all of you who wrote me or had comments about my novel, The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green. A screen adaptation was written recently and I think it's very, very good, so the next step is to have more readers weigh in and add notes and all that fun and perhaps one day soon those characters will come to life on screen. Yikes! The nutshell on my current book is that I'm handing it in to my editor at the end of June. The gang will read it and poke at it and my prayers are that I'll be damn close to finished after that. I love this book I'm writing, I do, I love her/him with all my heart. Books are like babies at first that grow with you and shape themselves over long and sometimes really long periods of your life. This baby was due last year so I'm really ready to push her out. The labor has been a doozy, let me tell you, and I can only see the crown at this point, a blotch of cranium.But don't worry, the heartbeat is steady, I've got plenty of fluids, my support system is intact, mostly because they've learned to stop asking me, "how it's going." I could probably use a life coach, we all could, unless you are life coach. I need a person who stands behind me in my office and screams, WRITE! in my ear when my mind contemplates going to Youtube to watch dogs fall in bathtubs with infants. WRITE!

"I was."

"No, you were thinking of going to Youtube and watching animals do hilariously cute things."

"No I wasn't. I was thinking, writers have to think before they write or there's nothing to write, get it? I was writing in my head, okay, a crucial scene in the book that will link so much together and subtly tell fascinating things to the reader without actually telling anything because showing is so much better than telling."

"Liar."

"You're my life coach, why are you calling me names?"

WRITE!

"I am, you dick."

"I'm your life coach, don't call me a dick."

"It's your name isn't it?"

"I told you…I prefer Richard."

Thank you, that's my first full play. I think we're going to open in

Minnesota

, then hit

Seattle

and fingers crossed the troupe will land on Broadway right around Christmas time. I think I'll cast Sir Lawrence Olivier to play Richard and I, of course, will be played by Samuel L Jackson.

Ready for a weird transition? Good.

My daughter is four and the other day she told me that she didn't like the tan-ish pants I was wearing. She said they were too close in color to the tan-ish jacket I had on. She said I looked like a zoo keeper. I stared down at this little person with her long blond ponytail and perfectly pink skirt and shirt on. It's like the bad girlfriends I had in college who always had advice on how I should dress. Flannel shirts and Timberlands in August, what's the problem? A girl named

Shari

didn't like my boxer underwear either so she bought me some navy blue, banana-hammock Calvin Klein underwear that made my testicles cry. No, I said, I have to wear what works for me. The next time I found myself in the same pants and jacket, I realized she was right. Zoo Keeper. An innate fashion sense inside my four year old. Or maybe four is the new seven.

Transition.

As I mentioned, the plan is to turn my new book in at the end of June. July 1, my family and I are traveling to

London

where my wife has an office. She is in the gaming biz, and has been since the early nineties. If any of you Londoner Myspace friends of mine know a good spot for me to do a reading, please let me know. Perhaps we could set something up. I'll be in the city until July 18th.

Well thanks again for the support and the patience and the inspiring messages. I'm off now to continue writing one of the great American novels of all time. But first, a little Youtube. Have you seen the one where the parrot reads the constitution while riding a unicycle. It's terrific.

I decided to cut a few yucky lines from this blog so I'm in the next day and it's cooler here, less moisture all around. Played eighteen holes of disc golf this morning at

hills to be exact. From my view here at my kitchen table I can see that it's a clear day, even in the frequently foggy city across the bay. It's been a long time since I wrote anything that wasn't related to my latest novel. Oh, yes the novel. Where is it? What is it? Is it actually a book or is it a tall stack of papers that say ALL WORK AND NO PLAY MAKES JOSHUA A DULL BOY. For those too young for the reference, see The Shining, starring Jack Nicholson and Shelly Duvall. The update on my book is that I finished a draft I was very happy with but my editors at Algonquin felt it needed to be tweaked here and there, very normal, and this tweaking has resulted in some substantial shifting which has put me in a new time bracket for its release. Ya see, books only come out in the fall or spring of any given year. So, the deadline for fall is the previous December and the deadline for spring is the previous June. Don't ask me why it takes so long to put a finished manuscript into book form, but it does. You wouldn't believe how much fine-tuning it takes to be actually done. When you read a bad book, if you've ever read a bad book, you can sometimes feel that the whole thing has been rushed, the same with bad movies. But when you get things right, even if it takes some time, those are the books that stay on your shelf forever, the kind of books you can't wait to share with people, the kind of book that still sells, even after the author's dead and turns to fertilizer. So even if I finished the book tomorrow, it wouldn't be put through the process of publishing until June. The bottom line is this: This is a horrendous career choice. Until, of course, the book comes out, and it's great, and people begin comparing you to long dead authors. But anyway, I appreciate all the letters and kind thoughts regarding The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green. I've mentioned in previous blogs that you can find my writing in three anthologies right now, the latest is called How To Spell Chanukah, and other holiday dilemmas. And I just agreed to be a part of another one that covers the topic of siblings. But enough about me. How are you? Have you been watching the new TV show called Election 08? It's the best new reality show out there and so much like American Idol that it's creepy. Both game shows, one about singing, the other about speech making. Both popularity contests, both watched by millions, both heavily scrutinized by pundits and judges and the public at large. I'd like to see them switch for an episode where you have Mitt Romney singing at a caucus, debating some other Republican through an operatic argument about the issues. Global Waaaaaarming is baaaaaad and we muuuuuust address the fact that the weather is Waaaaacky!!!!! And then the next night you have Kelly Clarkson and Fantasia out on stage for a heated discussion of foreign affairs and exit strategies for

Iraq

. Now that would be entertaining.

What else? Steroids in baseball? A Tiger kills a man at the SF Zoo, the same SF Zoo that my son has visited, oh, a thousand and ten times. I was away when the news came out and I thought, oh shit, my seven year old boy is a self proclaimed animal expert and a lover of both the Oakland and SF Zoos. If he hears that a Siberian Tiger swallowed a man whole outside the café we know and love, won't this make for nightmares and eventually years and years of costly therapy. When I called him to say hello that evening he opened the conversation by saying, "Hi Daddy, did you hear a 500 hundred pound tiger killed a man today at the SF Zoo?" After rolling my eyes, no I really did, I learned it was my father-in-law who shared the news after seeing it in the New York Times. In truth my son seems fine, not quite in need of trendy meds or therapy involving a reenactment of the incident with tiger puppets. I think, because he is indeed the animal expert of the family, that he is full aware that if big kitty can get out of his cage, then big kitty will take out frustrations of years of incarceration on anyone that big kitty can find. This is the end of my lesson on evolution and the food chain. Now onto baseball, my beloved but oh so tainted game. Nancy Reagan said JUST SAY NO but apparently a shit load of baseball players JUST SAID YES with their butts out and their uniform pants at their knees. Wham, right in the left butt cheek. I don't see the big problem, other than high school and even junior high school athletes realizing that they too can have enormous craniums and tiny weiners and superman strength. It's said that these mega drugs can make a good player great and a great player legendary. Not sure if you've noticed but we Americans like things big. Our washing machines and dryers are 10 times the size of those used in

Japan

. Our enormous cars are too fat to be driven on the streets of

Italy

. Our children look like Sumo wrestlers compared to kids you see in Asia and

Europe

. SUPER SIZE ME!!!! Please, someone SUPER SIZE ME!!!!! Barry Bonds was just trying to give the fans what they want. A ball hit so hard that it's still in the air when the game is over and you're pulling out of the parking lot. Boom, there it goes, a little white baseball, nearly flattened by the swing of a 34 inch piece of wood. It's like watching fire-works or Macy's Day Parade balloons or Monster trucks driving over a huge grotto of mud and sand and Confederate flags. Big, in

America

, is good. Big, in

America

, is crucial! Until you get caught and then lie in a federal court of course. I got to tell you, I'm so glad to hear that there aren't any steroids in the NHL, NFL, NBA or American Gladiators. Whew, what a relief that all those athletes are free and clear of any performance enhancing drugs. That's what I like, my sports to be as clean as Mitt Romney's blood stream. Nothing but milk and fruit and Mormonism. The other day during the Chargers game with

Indianapolis

, the Charger punter kicked the ball 65 yards down the field. 65 yards, the announcer couldn't believe it. Go outside right now and walk 65 yards. If that boy isn't shooting steroids into his ass then there's only one explanation for a football traveling that far off the foot of a human. Global Warming. The sky is thin, the polar bears are drowning, my gas tank is empty and Britney isn't wearing panties…again…to rehab. Who doesn't wear underwear to rehab?!

Good news: My novel, The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green has been optioned and will soon be a film.

Bad news: The writer's strike slows the process down.

Good news: I have time to focus on my novel.

Bad news: I'm writing a blog instead of focusing on my novel.

Good news: You are going to love my next book and recommend it to people for the rest of your life.

More Good news: I wrote a first novel before "Jacob Green," that I hope to publish "quickly" after the new book comes out.

Hope you're 08 has been joyous so far. I hope your candidate is the one that wins the election. And that your favorite singer wins American Idol. Sorry if your favorite ball player has an enormous neck and cranium and has to be locked-up for hitting really deep homeruns. Sorry if there's an author in the

Oakland

hills who has yet to deliver his sophomore novel. Understand that he also has two small kids who have needs like dentists and playdates and risky visits to the SF Zoo. Be kind to incarcerated animals. Please, please, only taunt your spouses.

His mother wakes him with the sound of his name. He hears "James" at these times, the tone of a question, like asking if it's really him under his rainbow blanket. He fake sleeps a little and watches her fold his green hooded sweatshirt and a pair of tan corduroys she never remembers he hates. She lays them neatly in an open brown suitcase that smells like the basement, tosses a pair of socks in there too which he'll bring home still folded in a ball. He turns his face away from her on his pillow and picks at the peeling seam of the wall paper; toy soldiers, light blue cannons. Someone else's choice.

"Come on, now. You know he's waitin'."

He thinks of the drive they'll take, the one she wakes him for every other Saturday: the Route 9 to Howard Johnson's. Jim can see the blue and orange sign from five minutes away on the New Jersey Turnpike. If he squints one eye, he can squash the sign with his pointer and thumb, mash it to nothing. He's done this all four times.

"I think I'm sick," he says, his head still turned.

"Yeah?"

"Uh-huh."

"You bringin' your hat?"

"You don't believe me?"

"I believe you. Which hat you wearing today?"

"I threw up last night," he says.

"Oh yeah."

"It was grilled cheese."

"Yankees or…what team is this?" she says flipping over the hat and squinting inside.

"And milk," he says.

"You didn't have milk, Jim. Is this a Dodger hat or what?"

"I mean juice…apple-"

"Is this a Brooklyn Dodger hat?"

"Mom?"

"Oh, this is from Little League."

He throws off the blanket and sits up in bed. He slides both thumbs inside a tiny hole in the knee of his olive pajama bottoms. He rips them slowly, no sound. His mother claps, "Come on, chop, chop, in the bathroom." He pulls his thumbs out.

"You can see I'm not lying if you look at the toilet," he says.

She turns to him with her hands on her hips, takes a breath and blows it out.

His mom dresses in tight, bright clothes whenever she drives him to the Howard Johnson's. She wears wet lipstick and has round long curls that bounce when the car does. It's where she goes after she drops him off that makes her spray perfume behind her ears. Jim knows she won't be alone in the apartment when he's gone, but not because she told him. Her boyfriend's name is Kyle. Jim hears him piss in the toilet when he stays the night, even with his fingers in his ears. Sounds like someone's pouring out a pail of water. Kyle bought Jim's mom a little-girl T-shirt with Minnie Mouse on it, got himself one too with Mickey, but his covers his belly button. Kyle has a pointed Adam's apple, cigarette teeth and tight dark jeans. He holds food in his cheeks between bites to stare at Jim's mom, says she's hotter than a tin roof in

Tucson

. Jimmy doesn't know where that is but it makes his mom grin and sip her beer like she thinks she's famous, or on TV.

"You go call your daddy and tell him you're too sick to see him, Jimmy. I'm too tired to play this game today," she says, a tilted chin. She kneels on the navy throw rug and opens the bottom drawer of his dresser with her back to him. She holds his bathing suit over her head and waves it like a flag.

"Is he takin' you swimming?" she asks and reaches to scratch something on her back that she can't get close to. She looks over her shoulder at him. "Jim?"

"I don't know," he says, softly.

"You don't know what?"

"If we're swimming at the Howard Johnson's."

She turns around, leans sitting against the dresser and motions with her finger for him to come toward her. He stands and walks over. She runs her fingers into his dark curled hair and lifts the thickness as high as it will go. Her eyes follow it to its peak and then drop to her son's eyes.

"You need a haircut, tough guy."

He shakes his head.

"How many candles are goin' on that cake in two weeks?"

"Nine."

"You sure it's not less than that?"

"Yeah, I'm sure."

"Your daddy's going to take you swimmin', buy you a Dusty Road, and then let you watch TV till dawn."

He shakes his head slower.

"Now, which one of those things makes you want to stay in this tiny apartment with me?"

He turns his head to the suitcase and back at me. He swallows. The tip of his tongue touches his top lip.

"What time tomorrow are…?"

"Same as the last four times, Jim. You tell me what time?"

"Is Kyle gonna come when you pick me up?"

"What time do I pick you up on Sunday, Jim?"

He lifts the black digital watch on is wrist nearly to his chin and squeezes two buttons with his right hand. It beeps.

"

12:30 PM

?"

"Okay, then. Which hat are you bringin'?" she says, lifting them in each hand.

"Is Kyle gonna come with you when you…"

"I'm not sure, Jim, do you have to know right now?"

"Is he gonna be here tonight?"

"I don't know that either, Sherlock Holmes. Would you like me to call the motel when I know?"

"Do you know the number?"

"Jim?"

"What?"

"I want you to get in the bathroom. I want you to brush your teeth and then throw your toothbrush in the suitcase. After that I want you in the car, got it?" She lifts the Yankees hat from the floor. "You wearin' this one?"

He nods and she puts it on his head, pulling the brim over his eyes with a jerk. He lifts the hat, turns the suitcase and pulls out the tan corduroys.

"I hate these," he says, holding them up.

She nods, looking at the pants. "Oh, right."

Jim walks in the bathroom, turns the cold water on high, and grabs his toothbrush. The room smells like perfume, reminds him of Saturdays and packing and picking which hat. She only wears perfume on these days, he thinks, just like last time. It's always the same. His Mom will honk the horn once to scatter sleeping cats. He'll smile but he won't let her see. She'll start the old car, a beige station wagon that smells of damp rug and a stinky sweetness like forgotten chocolate and has a drooping glove box door tied half-shut with the tassel from his mom's high school cap and gown. She'll turn on country, "anything that twangs" and strum her fingers on the dash to her 8-tracks while singing the crying words in something like a whisper. They'll get held up by the same traffic light just off the exit, just under the overpass from the Howard Johnson's. Jim will time the light by holding his breath, head leaning on the passenger window, eyes pinned on the red. The car's turn signal will click while his face puffs with blood; a dull, simple, right-turn click, but a sound he'll forever place with his father. Twenty seconds is all his lungs will hold, the traffic light always wins.

Jim leans the heel of his palm on the empty tube of Crest. He gets nothing but runs the bristles of his brush over the spout anyway. Most of what he sees in the mirror is his forehead and hair. On his tip-toes he can see his eyes and nose. He lifts his yellow toothbrush over his head to see the reflection.

"How's it comin' in there?" his mom says through the door.

She'll pull away from the Howard Johnson's after she kisses his head. She'll say, "Love you, see you tomorrow," and she'll spin the tires on the black pavement of that lot. He'll watch his Mom pull back on the turnpike and then check the time on his digital watch. It will get dark and then light again before he sees her.

"I'm starting the car, Jim. Don't forget that toothbrush."

Roddy Mills will be puffing away in a booth towards the back. He'll mash his cigarette out when he sees Jim and blow out his nostrils while sliding out on the orange vinyl. It'll be cold in there, maybe from those bright-lit carousel fridges with coconut cake and pressed down pie. "Jimminy Cricket," Roddy will say, like seeing an old pal, and then he'll squint for Jim's mom before talking ice cream and messin' his hair.

Jim shuts the car door, and his mom snaps his seatbelt. "Got everything?" she says.

He says nothing, and she puts the car in drive.

Roddy is in the Hojo parking lot this time, standing over the open trunk of the Dodge he calls Nellie. He sees the station wagon pull up so he snaps on the Styrofoam lid of his cooler, shuts the trunk and approaches with a wrinkled smile and a can of

Milwaukee

's Best. Jim's never seen him wear anything but jeans, the same faded pair. He wears a brown belt that never leaves the loops, spells "Roddy" on the back in colored woven plastic. He rolls the sleeves of his green satin Jets jacket up to the elbows, only keeps the bottom two buttons snapped. His Dad has a habit of tapping his heart with his fingers while he's talking or telling stories. The first time Jim met him, four visits earlier, he thought his dad might have some kind of sickness. His mother told him that Roddy was fine, he was just making sure he still had his cigarettes in his pocket.

Jim watches his dad walk towards them while he bumps his thumb blindly against his seat belt latch. Roddy kneels on the pavement at the driver's window and grips something on the top of the car with both hands. His face shows panic like he's really hanging off a moving car. Then he smiles.

"Good morning, family," he says, and pecks his wife on her turned cheek.

"Hello, Roddy," she says and clicks open Jim's seat belt.

"How's my boy this morning, Jim?"

"Good," he says, pulling the door lock up with both hands.

"You're lookin' beautiful as ever there, Mom. I don't suppose you smell like a rose petal for the father of your child, now, am I wrong?" he says grinning.

"You gonna be here at the motel the whole time, Roddy?"

"Now, that's what I wanted to talk to you about, Sweetheart."

Jim walks slowly around the front of the car with his suitcase towards his dad. Roddy stands from his crouch and lifts his son into the air with a spin. When Jim's feet touch the ground, he steps to get balance and smiles through the pinch he feels in each armpit. He looks at his mom. She's touching the car lighter to the tip of a Marlboro.

"What'd you want to talk to me about?" she says, blowing out the first toke.

"Now I got a little surprise for the boy," he says, smiling out of the corner of his eye at Jim. "But I'm gonna need just one more day."

"What kind of surprise?" she says.

"If I tell you that, it ain't a surprise no more, Angel."

"Your daddy's got something planned for you, Jim. How do you feel about stayin' an extra day?"

Jim's eyes drop to the pavement, puts the toe of his sneaker on a penny stuck in the parking lot tar.

"Got school on Monday."

"Well, you'll just have to miss school this time," his dad says, patting his palm against Jim's belly.

"I don't know, Roddy," she says. "One night's the deal and I think we ought to stick…"

"Now, I don't want to get in a huff here, Sweetheart, but I been…real good about this arrangement and…"

"One night is what we agreed."

"Agree? Agree nothin'. I had no choice but to sign that piece of paper that…"

"Why, Roddy?! Why'd you have no choice?" she snaps.

"Well, I think I've proven myself over the past few months, Sweetheart, and this here kid is just as much mine as…"

"Please don't. Don't start with me. You want to have him until tomorrow night, we can talk about that."

"Now I told you I need more time than that."

Her eyes go to the can of beer he holds in his hand and then back to him. "How's that breakfast sittin', Roddy?" she says, almost whispering.

He stares at her for a second then looks at the can himself. Jim is slowly kicking the front left tire of the car.

He walks to the window. She grips his face, presses her lips against his eye, leaves some of the wet redness with him.

"What time tomorrow night, Roddy?" she says, Jim's face still in her hands.

"Jimminy Cricket? Can't you miss one day of school for your old man?"

"He likes school, don't you, Jim?" she says.

He nods in her grip.

"Okay, great, he loves school. So, I need till nine or ten. Is that all right with you?" he says, flopping his forearm on the roof of the car.

"That sound okay with you, Jim?" she says.

He looks at his watch. "What time?"

"

Nine PM

. I'll see you then, okay?" she says in his ear.

He nods and steps away from the car. She pulls out of the lot. They both watch the station wagon disappear. Roddy lifts the suitcase. There's a silence in the air that's strange, such a busy highway stop. Roddy turns to Jim, licks the fat of his thumb and wipes the lipstick from his eye, knocking him back a step. Roddy starts walking toward the Howard Johnson's. He sips his beer and tosses it in the trash. Jim looks up at the highway, listens to the hum.

"You coming?" Roddy says.

He follows his dad.

Roddy pulls a box of cigarettes from inside his jacket, jerks the pack and pulls one out with his teeth. He lights it with a dip of his head, flicks the matches on the table. He looks at Jim sitting across from him in the booth then turns to a passing waitress and snaps his fingers twice.

"Be there in a second," she says.

Roddy rests the cigarettes in the ashtray and slides lower in his seat, resting his head against the back of the booth. Jim feels his dad's work boots under his feet.

"So."

Jim tries to sit up but the edge of the table stays even with his neck. He puts his finger on his paper placemat and moves it closer.

"Aren't you glad to see your old man?" Roddy says.

"Yeah."

"It's been two weeks now, Jimmy. I have to wait two weeks after I see you, and I think about you…you know? You're my son, and I think about you a lot."

Jim puts his finger on a drop of spilled water on his placemat. He spreads it into a line and then scratches it. It makes a hole.

"I got a picture of you, Jim. It's a picture of you with your mom on the day you were born. I bet you don't remember gettin' that picture took, am I right?"

"No, I don't remember."

"They got you in this little hat, a little yellow hat, and you're wrapped up and lying in your mom's arms."

"Okay," Roddy says, waving his hand. "No problem." He pulls the cigarettes out of his pocket, lights one up.

"So, what I'm telling you, Jim, is that we didn't meet for the first time in December, like you thought. We met back there on your first day of life," Roddy says, nodding.

Jim finds a smile. "But I don't remember."

"That's why I'm telling you about the picture of you squeezing my finger."

"Okay," he says.

"You got the whole thing in your tiny hand," he says, gripping Jim's left hand and wrapping it around his finger.

"Oh. Okay."

Roddy holds their hands together. "You ready to hear about the surprise?"

"Yeah."

"Can you guess?"

"Is it about Doreen?" asks Jim.

"No, it's a lot better than that."

"Is she here?"

"Yeah, yeah, she's washin' her hair."

"Is our room near the pool?"

"I think so, but keep guessin' on the surprise."

"Is it a present?"

"No, no, no."

"What is it?" asks Jim, a slight smile.

"You really want to know?" Roddy says, leaning his chest over the table.

Jim nods.

"I'll tell you," he says, and reaches out to stroke the boy's face where his cheek meets his eye.

Jim swallows, breathes out his mouth.

"But I want to hear that you love me first," Roddy says. "Since we met, I've never even heard you…call me Dad."

Jim tries to sit up, silverware falls and rattles the floor.

"It's just a little, stupid thing, I know…but I really want to hear it. Just once, Jimmy. I want to hear, 'I love you, Dad'. Just once."

"Here's the Coke," says the waitress. "It'll be a few on the burger."

Roddy leans back, straightens the Jets jacket and smiles at her. She sticks a straw to the side of the glass and leaves. Roddy stares at Jim and taps his heart. Jim slides the handle of his spoon through the hole in his placemat. It rips more.

"Love you, Dad," Jim says, his eyes on the placemat.

Roddy smiles, nodding to an unheard beat; his eyes fill and he taps the edge of the table with his ring.

"I love you too, Son. We're drivin' to

Florida

tonight."

It's drizzling when they walk outside. Jim looks up behind the restaurant at the blue and orange Howard Johnson's sign he can see from the turnpike. He can hear the lights in it buzzing when there's a slight break in the hum of highway cars flying through the new rain. This close he can see where some of the paint chipped away from the steel girders and turned to dark red rust. A skinny orange ladder runs up the side all the way to the top. Jim thinks the person who goes up there could see for miles or maybe even further. The bottom of the ladder is buried in strands of tangled, thorny weeds that blow sideways at the base; all of it is surrounded by a chain-link fence.

His first time at the Howard Johnson's he dreamt he climbed the ladder and saw his mom's station wagon on the Turnpike. She was eating a hamburger in the driver's seat, and Kyle was shaving, using a mirror in the sun flap, even though there isn't one there. Jim doesn't think he could see a person up there from the Turnpike, even if they were waving and saying his name. Especially on the wet highway, the way cars spray at that speed, blocking all other sounds.

"I'm gonna get some things front the trunk, Jimminy Cricket. You go on up to room 210," Roddy says, pointing to some outdoor stairs.

Jim carries his suitcase along the fence of the pool toward the concrete staircase. He walks on soggy astro-turf past an ice machine and climbs up the first step with both hands gripping the handle. He puts the suitcase down on the step and turns to see Roddy opening his trunk and checking out the changing sky.

Doreen answers the door with a Hojo towel folded on her head and one around her body. She's got an unlit cigarette hanging from her mouth that looks double the size of a normal one and the phone pinned between her shoulder and neck. She kisses his head, holds one finger up and mouths something to him with a crinkled nose.

"You got to rub his snout in it, Kath. He only did that…Kath?...he only did that cause he's angry with me…I know, I know…I understand that, but if you don't grab his fuc…his snout and cram it in there, he's gonna think he's won the battle. Now please, go do it before he forgets what the heck he's being punished for, okay? Listen, I got to go…right, nice, and hard and don't hold back but do it now so he don't forget…kay bye. Jimminy Cricket!"

She hugs and kisses with strength, smells like wet skin, talks fast and loud. Jim met her only once before, the second visit. She was in a towel then too. When she lets go he puts the suitcase next to the bed nearest the door and looks around the room.

"How are you, Jimmy?"

"Good."

"Where's your daddy?"

"I'm right here," says Roddy, with his squeaky cooler in his hands.

"Did he get bigger or is it me?"

"I think he might of," Roddy says.

"You're gonna be a big one, isn't he Rod?" she says, her hands on her knees, staring.

Roddy puts the cooler on the dresser, pulls two beers and opens them. He looks in the mirror, swats the rain off the top of his hair, then takes a sip.

"You been eatin' Wheaties, Jim?" she says.

"No."

"Like his daddy," Roddy says, bouncing on the end of the bed. "I told you I played football, didn't I, Jim?"

Jim nods.

"Well, I'm gonna get dressed," Doreen says. "Did you tell him about the surprise yet?"

Jim eyes jump to her. He slowly sits on the end of the bed, his feet on the floor.

Roddy is laying on his back with his beer resting on his chest.

"Roddy."

"What?"

"Did we get an extra day with Superman, here?"

"Been a slight change in those plans, Doreen."

Doreen slowly pulls the towel off her head and looks at Jim. She dries her hair a little as she walks over to him and lifts his chin with her finger.

"What's goin' on, Roddy?" she says.

"Plan A,

Coney Island

is out," he says, sitting up. "Plan B,

Disneyworld

is in." He swigs the can and holds it over his head. "

Disneyworld

.

Orlando

,

Florida

or bust," he announces and then looks at Doreen. "Kid's never been there."

Doreen looks at Roddy and shakes her head. She takes Jim's chin in her hand and smiles, her round face shines.

"Jimmy? Your mom say okay to

Disneyworld

?"

Jim closes his eyes, swallows.

Doreen lets go of his chin and takes a deep breath while ruffling her sandy hair with the towel. She walks over to her beer and takes a sip. "Well, I'll tell ya. Personally, plan A was gonna work out for me because I got Monday off so we could go ride the Cyclone all day tomorrow, you know, and eat some cotton candy and all, take our time getting back here tomorrow night, head home Monday."

"Plan A got shot to shit, Doreen. The boy's mother said no! Can't have Monday! She said no, no, to Monday because of the agreement! Do you remember the fuckin' agreement?"

"Who are you yelling at, you crazy…"

Roddy stands, slams his can on the top of the T.V. and beer flies to the ceiling.

"One fuckin' day I ask for and that woman says no to me."

"Roddy, you're scaring your son!" she says through clenched teeth.

"She makes me come out to this crap motel because I can't be trusted to have him in the house, thinks I'm gonna shove liquor down his fuckin' throat."

Jim looks at Doreen. She walks back to him smiling with her eyes, puts her hand on his head and leans it against the damp towel on her hip.

"Roddy? Jimmy knows you want him to come to the house, but everything's a little bit new right now, right, Jim? In a few months we'll have him at the house, and we'll all wish we had the pool back, right?" she says, shaking his shoulder.

Roddy turns his back to them. He sits hunched over on the bed, facing the wall.

"She'll never let him come to the house, Doreen."

"That's not true, Roddy."

"You didn't read the agreement."

"I think I know what it said."

"It doesn't matter any more what it said 'cause he's my son too. I'm tired of listening to her rules."

"We got a good plan for tomorrow though, Roddy."

"I got a new plan. Made it while I watched her pull out of here today, Doreen, and

Disneyworld

's become a big, big part of it."

Doreen walks over to Roddy, sits on the bed and starts rubbing the back of his neck. Jim doesn't see the telephone, it's probably on the floor. He can't hear Doreen's words, just mumbles, her mouth touching his dad's ear. A kid screams outside the window, but it's excitement, something about the pool. "Maybe later," an adult voice says, and the kid asks "Why?"

"Jim?" Roddy says, his back still facing him.

"Yeah?"

"I wonder what your mom would think if I took you down to

Florida

," he says calmly.

Jim looks at the splattered beer on the mirror then stands slowly and walks toward the back of their heads. Doreen still rubs Roddy's neck but stops when she sees Jim get close. She puts an arm around his shoulder and pulls him near them. Roddy wipes his nose on his sleeve and lifts his head smiling. Doreen starts to squeeze Jim's neck at the same time as Roddy's. It hurts.

"Look at us," Roddy says. "We're a family."

"Tell Jim, Roddy. Tell him what we're gonna do tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" Roddy says grinning.

"That's right, Honey."

"I'll tell Jimminy Cricket all about tomorrow, but I want you to hear what he said to me in the restaurant, Doreen. I want you to hear what my son told me."

"What'd you say?" she says shaking Jim's shoulder.

Jim spins his watch on his wrist.

"What'd you tell your daddy, Jim?"

"I said I love him."

Roddy's chin slowly drops to his chest. He reaches for his eyes with both hands, but the tears are already through his fingers. He drops off the bed to his knees and wraps both arms around Jim's body, his large hand gripping the back of his head.

"My son," he says, his eyes closed, stubble pressing against Jim's neck and face. Roddy jolts to his feet, puts his hands under Jim's armpits and lifts.

"Careful with him, Roddy," Doreen says.

He spins him once in a circle above the room, then drops on the bed like a cut down tree with Jim locked in his arms. They bounce and settle, the Yankee hat falls. Jim's right sneaker is clamped between Roddy's knees. He feels his father's tears under the neck of his t-shirt, smells the cigarettes and beer, his eyes shut tight, dark.

Doreen kneels over them and strokes Roddy's hair. "Roddy, Honey…let him go. He's your boy and you love him, he knows that. You need to let him go."

"He loves me, Doreen," he whispers.

"You bet he does, Baby. You bet he does."

Roddy loosens his grip but still lays wrapped around his son. Doreen peels his arms off and helps Jim stand. She walks with him to the bathroom. Jim looks back at his dad whose hands block his eyes. Doreen runs the hot water and grabs a wash cloth.

"You okay, Jimmy? You're dad just loves you so much. You know that." She pushes his sweaty hair back from his forehead and blotches his skin with the warm cloth. "I hope this rain goes away.

Coney Island

's no fun if it's rainin'. You ever been there, Jim?"

His eyes stay closed, his lips tight. Doreen shuts the steaming water off and runs the cloth over his lips.

. Lilly held nothing back, told her daughter she got the name because that's what was on the tube when she got made. "Dog style," Lilly said it was, knees getting raw on the short cables of the orange carpet. Dinah's eyes glanced at the faded rug, heard the story every birthday. Lilly laughed. She wiped smeared eyes and sipped Saturday breakfast from a martini glass. She kept her pinkie out but wore a faded satin robe, Chinese letters on the back, coffee stains on dangling sleeves. Dinah pushed her glasses up on her nose and tugged at the bottom of the T-shirt she wore over her leotard. It had a print on it of two kittens, paws high, unwound string. She packed her ribboned shoes and hooded sweatshirt into her backpack. Lilly sat on one of the couch cushions on the floor. She ran her nails along the tight orange rug, ankles wrapped with damp Ace bandages, flattened slippers half off callused toes.

"What do you want for your birthday, Sugar?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know? What birthday girl don't know what she wants on her day of days?" Lilly said, head lazy to the side, a sip of breakfast.

"A cake," said Dinah, in a voice younger than her own. She pushed the glasses up, lifted the peach backpack over both shoulders with a hop. Lilly's head spun to her daughter, lips cracked, thinned.

"You'll get a cake, tubby. Of course your stomach answers first. I mean for a present, all birthday girls get a present."

"I don't know, Mama. You can surprise me."

"I don't got time for surprises, little girl. I need narrowin' down, this is my day off."

"You put the bag on your back before you tie your shoes, Dinah. You got the brains…"

"I need a new leotard."

"What?"

"You asked me what I wanted, Mama." Dinah yanked the T-shirt bottom and lifted a sole copper key resting in a filled ashtray.

"Look at you, Honey, your zipper's half undone. Get goddamn dressed before goin' out there. You want dirty old men staring at your panties?"

Dinah tugged at the bunched zipper on her denim miniskirt and walked toward the door. She stepped over Lilly's pink knees, the vertical on the TV flipped with each step. A knot of tin foil weighted down each antenna ear, an ad for ceiling fans, volume down.

"What's wrong with the leotard you got? I just bought the shoes."

"The elastic is broken around the legs. The shoes are fine."

Lilly picked her Camels off the floor, flicked the package and pulled with her teeth. She lit it and shook her head.

"Leotard, ree-o-tard. I smell eggs in this apartment building. I think Mr. Henry's making omelets, Dinah." Lilly's head rolled on her neck, a shut-eyed grin. "I love that smell. He got cheese in there too."

"I'm leaving," said Dinah, with an unseen wave.

"You got bus fare?"

"Yes."

"What's for dinner, birthday girl?"

"You decide, Mama."

"I smell eggs, honey, I love that smell."

"I don't want eggs for dinner."

Lilly snapped her robe over her knees, her ears all red.

"Can't afford steak, birthday queen."

"Eggs is breakfast food, Mama."

"You got a job,

Dinah

Shore

? Smells good, you smell that?

"You decide, Mama."

"I decided. There's cash in my pants in the bedroom, get some cheese on your way back."

Dinah went into the bedroom, she lifted red jeans from the floor.

"Mama, there's a ten and a five."

"Take the five. Get the yellow slices and some bread."

Dinah rested the jeans on the corner of the mattress.

"Bye, Mama."

"Bye bye, birthday girl."

In the summer it got real hot and the elevator smell got worse, like a toilet. Dinah and Lilly lived on the eighth floor and the stairs were no better. Dinah hopped over bunched toilet paper balls, wrappers and wet spots coming and going. She held her breath, could hold it for all eight floors too. In August she stopped using the elevator. She rode down with a man she never saw before who said his name was Ho Ho and showed her his penis. It was swollen and red and he stroked it and stuck out his tongue. Dinah didn't hold her breath that day but the man pressed his penis against her backpack and she saw the stain in school during a film strip on solar energy. Since then she took the stairs and took them fast. The metal steps, cement block walls and cold squares of the tiled floor turned whispers into screams so as Dinah raced down swinging herself around each staircase, people yelled out their dented metal doors," Slow down," then slammed them shut. Dinah kind of liked it.

The 206 stop was on

Yorkshire

in front of a local grocery called Teddy's. Teddy weighed three hundred and nine pounds and Dinah knew this because of a song he sang that rhymed. She only laughed the first time because Teddy had a perm and the song came with a dance. He lifted his aluminum shutters just before the 206 arrived on Saturdays and always said hello to her. No matter what she was wearing he'd tell her it was a good color for her eyes. She smiled, but knew he didn't mean it. The

8:30

was the bus to catch because if she missed it she had to walk on Clark Street to catch the 7 and that wasn't even safe in the morning. Teddy told Dinah he'd drive her to ballet if she ever missed the bus. She said yes once but Teddy's silver Chevy smelled like the elevator and her pants stuck to his white leather seats. His stomach rubbed against the fuzzy steering wheel and he drove sixty on the back streets. She was late anyway.

"Morning, Dinah," said Teddy. He bent to lift the graffitied doors.

"Hi."

"Going to ballet?"

"Yes," she said, pushing up her glasses.

"Yellow's a good color with your eyes, Dinah. Like them kittens too."

She smiled and blocked the sun with her hand.

"No rain today," Teddy said, eyeing the sky. "Probably not for the rest of the week, neither."

Dinah gave a half look and touched her zipper without knowing. "Nope."

Teddy finished his chore and stood next to her on the curb. Two other commuters stood near them, they both smoked. Teddy peered down the street for her bus, his neck was sweaty, his breaths labored. She stared at her hands, then picked at chipped nail polish.

"If the 206 don't come I'll drive you."

Dinah bent slightly, looking for the bus.

"It usually comes a little late."

"But if it doesn't, I'll drive you."

"Thanks." She bent again.

Teddy put his hands on his hips and took a deep breath with his nose. He patted his hair, Dinah glanced at her violet watch.

"What grade you in now, Dinah?"

"Sixth."

"Sixth grade?" he said, scratching the side of his nose. "You're getting to be quite a lady. I remember you catching the 206 when you were in fourth."

Someone rattled the locked front door of the grocery. Teddy and Dinah turned to the noise.

"Wha-joo call me, Shamu the fuckin' whale?" The man sort of skipped toward Teddy. They stood nose to nose, Teddy put his hand on the right pocket of his maroon pants. The man held his thick finger inches from Teddy's face and spoke with a tilted chin.

"Wha-joo call me?"

"I called you a Nig, black man. I'll open the store when I'm Goddamn ready.

Dinah walked where the two other commuters stood, pulled on the T-shirt and stared at her shoes. The 206 approached and stopped with a wheeze. The bus doors folded open. She dropped her coins in the slot and made eye contact with the driver who'd picked her up every Saturday for two years. He bobbed his bald head when the coins settled, saying nothing as usual. She teetered down the aisle as the bus pulled away from the curb. All the eyes of the passengers stared at Teddy and the angry guy. The two men looked like they might kiss while both mouths barked muffled words.

Dinah sat on the corner of a bus seat next to a skinny woman who blew fog circles in the window. While she X-ed her breaths with her thumb, the woman spoke softly to herself. Dinah flattened her miniskirt and picked at her nail polish, her backpack kept her perched forward on the seat but she liked it that way. The shifting gears of the bus almost drowned the woman's voice. She had a jet-black crew cut she must have done herself and smelled just a little like vomit. Dinah breathed through her mouth.

"You put the square peg in the square hole, Bobby. You put the round one in the round hole, Lenny. Willie got a toothache, Johnny got a flat, which one a ya gonna swallow the fish tongue, will it be you Donny or you the dike, ride a bike, tike."

The story halted when the bus did. The woman's eyes were stuck on Dinah, who felt the stare and turned her face up to a hot pink advertisement for a foot doctor. Dinah read the phone number to herself, willing the bus to move. Just move.

"You look like my sister," the woman said.

One-eight-zero-zero-B-U-N-Y-O-N-S

"Lady, you look like my sister."

"Thank you," said Dinah, eyes still on the ad above.

"She lives in the warmth."

One-eight-zero

"In the sun."

Zero-B-U-…

The bus leaned and pulled away from the stop into the flow of traffic.

"I eat scoops of poops when the cops killed the Hebrews…lady?"

Dinah turned to the woman.

"What's your name, lady?" said the woman.

Dinah shifted slightly, getting centered on her seat.

"Lady, what's…?"

"Dinah."

"Dinah?"

"Yes."

The woman spun to the window and blew a circle with all her breath. "Dinah in the back seat, Pinah in the front. Is your name Dinah? Is it?"

"Yes," said Dinah. She pushed her glasses up and saw dried blood in the woman's nostrils.

"Dinah," the woman said lovingly. Her head tilted and a tear dropped from her eye like a stone onto her plastic white purse. "You have sweet cheeks." The woman's boney hand lifted slowly before touching Dinah's cheek. Clammy fingers against her face, Dinah shifted, eyes flinched, awkward, she reached out for nothing, fingers spread, the woman's eyes closed, another sole tear.

"Ma'am?" said Dinah softly. Her eyes searched to see if anyone was watching, then flashed to see the driver's eyes focused on the road in the large rearview mirror. She tapped the woman on the shoulder.

"Ma'am, I have to get off soon." The woman's hand rested on Dinah's cheek, an index finger lodged under her glasses. Dinah slid on the seat, away from the woman but the hand lay flat, heavy, pressing as Dinah scooted down toward the aisle. She stood with a jolt, the woman's hand flew free and Dinah's glasses spun three rows forward landing on the floor and sliding further.

"Dinah, your glasses," said the woman, as if just awoken.

Dinah's eyes appeared cross-eyed without the glasses and the two identical reddened divots high on her nose shone. She focused on the woman briefly, unable to find words, then teetered down the aisle holding onto the seat backs. She knelt where she thought they had landed and squinted near a man's feet. She thought he was an orthodox Jew or a rabbi because he had a fully gray beard and all his clothes were black, including his cap. He bent between his legs to retrieve the glasses and the bus slowed to arrive at Dinah's stop. She eyed the bus stop, then the rabbi's bent back, then the bus stop again. When he sat up he blew on them and handed them to her with a blood-rushed face and a gray bearded smile.

"First they hit me in the head and then the foot. At least they're not broken," he said, standing.

Dinah placed them on her face with both hands.

"Thank you," she said, in a sigh. His face was beautifully clear.

"You're welcome, it was easy."

The bus pulled to the side of the road and stopped. Dinah and the rabbi were the only ones to get off. The crazy woman rapped on the window with a fist, excited to recognize Dinah. She attempted to open the window with jolting lifts but the bus pulled away as she tugged, her lips flapped.

Dinah walked on Ridgefield Avenue toward the community center. Nothing where she lived was as green and alive as

Ridgefield

. She loved the four-block walk and the way the trees swayed like they were dancing to some slow song. She stopped at the first street corner and pushed her glasses up. The rabbi's black clothes came into view next to her.

"You should think about contact lenses," he said, a little out of breath.

Dinah paused with her eyes on him, then smiled and walked into the street. The rabbi followed slightly behind.

"I hated the idea myself but I have a tenacious doctor who, for some reason, benefits if I do this to my eyeballs every morning."

Dinah smiled again and continued her pace.

"You should have seen my fingers in the beginning, like ten thumbs trying to put this thing on my eye, terrible. But in time, like anything, I learned, I learned."

Dinah sped up slightly, then stopped at the next crosswalk keeping her eyes straight. The rabbi's clothes came into sight soon after.

"My wife said to me, before she passed, 'Eli, you look ten years younger without glasses.' You know what I told her?"

Dinah turned to him, squinting from the sun.

"That makes me younger than you, you dirty old broad."

Dinah yanked on her T-shirt while the rabbi laughed at his own joke and pulled a hanky from his pocket to wipe his neck. The laugh faded.

"Such a serious face on you."

Dinah stepped into the street then quickened her pace, moving her black shoes faster into a slow jog. She reached the steps, her bangs moist against her forehead, out of breath. She pulled the tall wood door of the community center and the sunlight vanished with an echoed slam.

Harper was a nickname, Dinah guessed, but never asked. She wore her blond ponytail high and was some kind of queen at

Ridgefield

High School

. She got picked up after ballet by a different guy in a different car every week. Dinah liked the guy named Russell, because once he stepped on her backpack and said the word "Sorry" in a really soft way. Dinah heard it again some nights in bed and was disappointed when Russell stopped picking Harper up from class.

"Pull that mini off, Dinah, and get those legs stretched," said Harper, leaving the room.

The nine other girls were already half dressed so Dinah ran to the corner and unzipped her backpack. She hated changing in the main room even though she had her leotard underneath. There were mirrors on all four walls and fathers dropping their daughters off. Katie Barritt's Dad came barging in once before Dinah could pull her T-shirt over her head. Every girl laughed and Katie hated Dinah from then on. She whispered things in the girl's ears whenever Dinah got changed and once hid her T-shirt behind the radiator. It didn't help that Katie was Harper's pet ballerina and was picked to lead stretches each week. Dinah thought it was because Katie would become Harper in six years and she was being trained for the royalty. She told this theory to Sarah Ellerson when she was the new girl and didn't know yet that Dinah was Dinah. Sarah told Katie the same day and instead of being honored she flared her tiny pale nostrils and coined the name "

Chester

" for Dinah.

"Why

Chester

?" asked Dinah, with a wary smile.

Kimberly Howe was the girl that stood in front of Dinah during stretches. The girls called her "Broom Stick" because she was twelve and weighed under eighty pounds.

"It's cause you have breasts already," she said, swinging a straightened leg back and forth.

Dinah eyed her chest in the mirror next to her then looked away. Vivaldi played on a gray, portable record player, she closed her eyes and reached unsuccessfully for her toes.

Dinah pulled her T-shirt over her head, plugged her shiny shoes into her backpack and fumbled her glasses on her face. Harper returned with a stack of records and knelt to put "The Four Seasons" on as she did each week for warm-ups.

"Let's go now. Katie, lead stretches, changing time is over."

Dinah pressed on the broken elastic in her leotard but it bunched and popped out, leaving an opening near her inner thigh. She pressed it again as she hustled into place. Spring was under way on the record player. Kimberly Howe's leg swung up on the balance bar with ease, her ribboned hair dipped, nose to knee. Dinah followed. Her heel just grasped the bar, and, with her knee hooked in an unyielding L, she dipped her head. Katie counted off in shouts and the girls switched legs. Harper strolled down the line of girls, her head bobbing to the rhythm.

"Atta girl, Tricia, that's what I was taking about last week. Listen up for Katie if you forget the order but you should know it by now. Don't give me the fake agony, Lisa; I know your act by now. That's it, Sarah, more limber than the beginning, keep it up."

Dinah's left leg was hooked on the bar, her breaths were heavy, her glasses slid. She heard Harper's voice grow toward her, nearly there.

"Come on now Kimberly, shake out the sleepy stones, bend that head."

Dinah's head was turned away but she could see Harper's white Reeboks and pink socks in the reflection of the mirror. Time stopped, Vivaldi softened, Dinah could hear her heart. Harper stood still, legs apart, no words, no words.

"Look at you, Dinah. You're lookin' real good. I have seen progress before but you are the queen today, ma lady. I like it, keep it going, Babe."

Dinah watched Harper continue down the line in the mirror. Kimberly Howe peeked back, then dipped her head even lower. Dinah pushed her glasses up on her nose. Vivaldi paused, and then began summer.

The

noon

206 back to Yorkshire Avenue was often late. Dinah eyed the greens and yellows of the enormous willow tree that hung over the bus stop bench on the east side of

Ridgefield

. Like an umbrella, she thought, with her head tipped back. She wondered if she'd ever be protected from the rain by its leaves. Was it true that it hadn't rained on even one of the Saturdays she'd come to ballet? And the bus stop bench wobbled.

"We have to stop meeting like this," said the rabbi. He was holding a plate wrapped in tin foil in his right hand, he fumbled with a bus schedule with the left. Dinah picked nail polish and bumped her shoes that nearly touched the ground.

The rabbi flicked the schedule as if it were stuck to his hand. It unfolded into a larger piece of paper that waved in the wind but for the corner he grasped.

"Oh jeez. Excuse me? Quiet girl? Could you hold these cookies for me, my map has a mind of its own."

The rabbi put the tin-foiled plate on Dinah's lap and suppressed the schedule with both hands. Dinah looked straight forward, then leaned her head for the 206. The smell was strong. The smell was clear. The smell was freshly made chocolate chip cookies, and she was sure.

The rabbi disappeared behind the schedule he held with both arms extended. His voice came from behind the wall.

"You need to be a rocket scientist to read this thing. Is today some kind of holiday? The bus should be here."

Dinah's knees stayed locked, balancing the plate she hadn't touched.

"It's always late," she said softly.

The schedule dropped, the rabbi's smiling face emerged.

"She has a voice!" he sang, and stamped his foot. The song continued. "It's a pretty voice. Does the pretty voice know what time the late bus is supposed to arrive?"

Dinah tried to keep a straight face but when she realized she couldn't, she turned away. "Twelve."

"Oh, what a smile, there's a smile too. Such a smile must have a cookie," the rabbi said as he sat with excitement and lifted the tin foil.

Dinah's face straightened.

"I can't…thank you, but I can't."

The rabbi looked at her, feigning sadness. He took the plate off her lap and sat back on the bench, chin lowered.

"It was my first baking class at the community center," he said in a morbid tone. "I didn't want to make cookies. I'm a brownie man. At the end of the class all the students began sampling the cookies and not one person tried mine. Not one." The rabbi took a slow nibble off the end of a cookie.

Dinah wasn't sure if he was kidding but rememberedthat he said his wife had died. She pushed up her glasses and moved slightly closer to him, her mouth opened once to speak, then closed.

"Today's my birthday," she said, just above a whisper.

The rabbi's head slowly lifted. He smiled widely and raised the plate to Dinah. She picked one off the top with a tiny shrug of her shoulders.

I thought I'd write to tell you that I have a story coming out on June 5th. It's in a book called, "Living on the Edge of the World," and it's a collection that features writers from the grand state of

New Jersey

. In the Fall, another story of mine, a very "Jacob Greenish" essay will be in an anthology that talks of the holiday known as Chanukah.

So hi, how are you, thank you to those of you who've written to express your thoughts of Jacob and his Unthinkable Thoughts. It means a lot to me that you are moved by the book. For those of you who have questions about finding agents, getting started (writing wise) getting published etc, I've written a few blogs that address this so my thoughts and my personal story about publishing should be there.

I'm in an interesting spot in this career choice of mine. I have one novel out that got quite a bit of attention and another virtually finished and approved by my publisher. I find myself free in a way that I haven't been for more than two years. I believe it comes from the guilt-free notion that I'm done with this particular journey (the new novel) which means at present I do not have to think or angst about a pending deadline, one that involved my sophomore offering and the negotiation of money and loads of expectations that is either real or manufactured in my head. In the last two weeks I've been allowed to live in this guiltless existence that has opened up a part of me that is creative, yes, but in ways that does not involve writing. I've been taking photographs for years but only recently went back to black and white. This has been a great joy for me, partly because I'm shooting really, really well – in my opinion. (A non-dig Nikon N80 with a 200mm lens) It's hard to describe a photograph because in theory it is a thousand words. I hope to show you someday.

The other thing I started doing is drawing. My kids both like to sit at the dining room table and draw so I began to do it with them and now take some pride in the always abstract and overlapping shapes I'm creating with a variety of Crayola brand magic markers. It is only within the last few days that I've been thinking about a short story or the idea of sitting down to write one. My first thought -I'll write it in the next month and send it to the New Yorker because it's the

Mecca

of all magazines to publish short fiction. Perfect, I have the place to send it. Now, what's it going to be about? Who knows. I went out to my driveway yesterday and saw that the garbage men had taken the trash but left a little mess of tiny bits of paper and Styrofoam peanuts that were swirling around the pavement.I grabbed a plastic bag and began individually picking up the pieces. Out of the corner of my eye came my neighbor, Jim. Jim is probably near or on top of ninety years old and walks gingerly down our steep street to help me. He has a very large, industrial sized broom and an aluminum sweep-up pan that's bigger than his head. Since the day I moved into my place, this lovely man has offered all of his many tools to me in the hope, it seems, that I will accept his offer and in turn he'll have someone to talk to for a minute or so. I thank him and smile and take the broom and pan and clean the mess as he watches. We are silent as I work. When I finish I dump the trash into the bag and ask him a question that I don't really remember. How are things? Nice day, isn't it? Whatever it is, it triggers a story in him, a story that I decide quite early on in the process of hearing, to ride-out with attentive patience to the very end. And as he speaks, he is not looking at me but it's normal, it's the way men stand, not facing each other but almost next to each other. He is talking about the amplifier he's building and how he was the electrical engineer on a battleship in the South Pacific during World War 2. The ship was hit by both a torpedo, which took a seventy-foot chunk out of the bow, and a kamikaze aircraft that murdered forty-two young people. He looks at me now. I look at him. I ask a ridiculous question. "Did you hear it, did you hear the plane?" He laughs a little and looks away again to remember. "I more than heard it."

So, perhaps there's a story there. Two people, both with lives that need to appear to the reader to have existed way before the story begins. The man cleaning up his trash is married, maybe. What's his story? The elderly man who comes to help him is lonely, definitely. I think about his skin, Jim's skin, on his hands and his bald head. His skull is small, his skin spotted. He was born. He lived day in and day out, like we all do. He married. He was sent to war. Said goodbye to his family and got on a ship. An explosion happened. More than one. He wept when he saw the bodies. The people. Now gone.

Okay, now, my sister told me yesterday that a common acquaintance of ours will only be in a photograph if she's hiding her left arm because she is positive that her right arm is thinner than the left. This is a very unusual tidbit about this person, any person, so I'll write it down in a notebook; perhaps throw it into the story at some point for texture. Any story. I was watching TV last night and I heard an Elvis song being played on the trumpet. I like it. A heavy-set teenager is in the marching band. He plays the trumpet. Not the tuba! Never make the fat kid play the tuba, it's expected. In fact, the trumpet is too close. Do we make him thin so he can play the tuba? The tuba is an over-the-top instrument for fiction. Let's make him heavy and let's give him a flute. It's the only instrument on the football field that cannot be heard amongst the others. Nor can the boy, be heard, by anyone. Why? Because he's heavy? That's lame. Characters can't just be heavy and sad. Screw the fat. He's skinny, way skinny, in fact he is hipless so he's forced to synch the belt on his corduroys and it makes it bunch near the zipper and leaves him looking like he's wearing pajamas underneath or even a large diaper. That's mean. And he has soft eyes and a dad who never liked him. Poor fucker. And he worships John Lennon. And Mark Hamel. And Bobafet. And he plays the flute in the marching band and no one can hear it and the kids laugh because his band uniform is synched too and this is a really big day for the kid because he's got a flute solo, a five second flute solo in this Elvis song, "Hound Dog," where all the instruments stop and he can be heard loud and clear for five little seconds. His moment.His great-grandfather is in the audience. He was an electrical engineer in the war and toured on battle ships but that's not important now. His mom's there too. She won't be photographed, ever, unless her fat left arm is blocked and her thin right one is shown. The flute solo is about to start. Shhhh, it's fast, hardly audible. Here it comes. Here it comes. The kid's gonna shine.

Is it true? January was my last blog entry? That feels like a long time ago. I've been busy finishing my next book and now it's off to my publisher and I will wait for the reaction. For now, nothing to do but stew in it and wonder how long from now the reaction will arrive. I guess the best thing to do is to keep busy. The faucets in my shower need re-caulking. I need a new lamp in my bedroom. If the enormous tree in my front yard decides it's had enough standing, it will undoubtedly fall onto my roof. The image of this is a horrific one for me. Small kids and all. I need to call a guy who thinks about trees a lot and can touch the bark and tell me if it's healthy or if it's aging and dying. What I need, is a tree whisperer. Oh yes, Mother's Day is Sunday and I have shopping to do. I know a few mothers, including the one I'm married to. I'll just get her one of those silky teddy numbers from

Victoria

's Secret that she'll wear once and then cram in her bottom drawer with the others. In truth, a mother's day gift doesn't need to connote sex. Valentines Day does this for us. And anniversaries. This one's about motherhood and her role as a parent so it's more PTA than anything carnal. With this said, it should be a practical gift, one that thanks her for all she's done as a mother, including, of course and beginning with, child birth. A massage, always a hit. At the Claremont Hotel and Spa in

Oakland

,

CA

, that's right, a plug, and a hell of a restaurant/bar with a view to boot. Maybe I'll get her some type of bath oil basket with creams and polishes and soaps with tiny bits of mashed yeast imbedded in them. Or slippers that warm themselves and a Loofah kit with shampoos made of Scottish cow placenta. Yuck, sorry. I'll just get her new sheets and then I can benefit too. Or towels, we need a few towels. Oh, I know, she likes to get a manicure and pedicure. The only problem is that I have to go into the manicure place to set it up and it smells exactly like the adhesive glue that was used to put my braces on when I was eleven. It takes me right back to Dr. Melman's office and his rank breath and the really spooky way he used to mumble, "Open. Open wider."

Maybe a gag gift this year. I bought a great friend of mine a blow-up doll for his birthday. I had to research blow up dolls, no really, for a short story I wrote for a magazine called 7X7. It turns out they have them in all shapes and genres and you can even get one in the likeness of some of your favorite celebrities. Richard Simmons was particularly disturbing. And

Florence

, the housekeeper from the Jefferson's, I mean, who thinks of this stuff? In the end, (no pun intended) I went with a girl named "Lovey," and no, she was not Mrs. Howl from Gilligan's

Island

. On the box, she looked like your standard, platinum blond, porn chick with rock hard, softball shaped boobs. Outside the box she smelled like a new Twister board and had a frozen "O" shape on her lips. Let's just say she came out ready to please. The gift was a huge success. Although strangely, my friend wasn't at all interested in "using" her. Sexy isn't one of the adjectives I'd use when describing Ms. "Lovey." I think she may be floating in his pool right now. I've got it! I'll get my wife a copy of the The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green by Joshua Braff. What a novel. All mothers should read it. They should read it with their children, if their children are old enough of course. It's been said there are dangerous words hidden in the text. And if you read it backwards, the entire plot changes and involves a Russian spy, a British vixen and then just reams of microfiches that are held by a despicable antagonist with a scar and a huge aquarium, where, by the way, the microfiches are kept. (In the bellies of the sharks) Read in a forward fashion, the book is about a boy and his murky life.

My second novel is finished in my opinion and will be out on shelves when it's allowed to be out. Thank you for all your kind words and support and understanding that the process is a long one, but always worth the wait.

I only read fiction when I'm not writing it. So I'm currently reading Cormac McCarthy's, The Road.

Writing exercise. Free-write while listening to music on headphones. A first for me. I think I'd do it more but the notion of being directed by the vibe of any particular song is not the way I usually approach creative writing. Nonetheless, a very rockin' Queens of the Stone Age song is pumping through my skull right now and let's just see what it triggers as far as creative thought. Multiple crunching guitars, extremely heavy drumming. I can't really think. Maybe I'll turn it down. No, up, I'll turn it way up and try to write from the point of view of someone listening to loud music. Nothing creative coming to me. I think my ears are bleeding. Anyway, today is a day in which I await my editor's thoughts on my next book. She said she'd respond to it in two weeks and it's been seventeen days now and I'm starting to go a little nuts. She hates it. It sucks. She'll tell me in the kindest, most diplomatic voice she can muster that I've wasted a couple of years of my life and it's now time to understand that talent isn't just handed to anyone and that the gift one possesses when writing powerful and poignant fiction is not the kind of gift you can purchase. There will be silence between us for a long ten seconds as I attempt to figure out who I'll now be, who I'll be forced to become.

She'll then continue. "It isn't what we were expecting, Josh. It just…isn't what we were expecting."

"Can you elaborate?" I'll say, trying to hide the wobble in my voice.

"Sure," she'll say. "On the tier of expectation, you're latest effort has scored below the level that we in publishing call Crap."

Or. Or, or, or. My editor is reading my manuscript for the fifth, maybe the sixth time, in order to absorb all that's really been accomplished here. She's giddy with it, can't put it down, is worried how I'll handle all the press, the Oprah visits, the scrutiny on which chapters are actually fiction and which have been ripped from the marrow of my riveting life.

Or. Or, or, or. She's sitting at her desk, finishing my book and something terrible has happened, something personal, something, has happened to my editor. How selfish of me to rush someone who's dealing and coping with something so personal.

Songs for the Deaf is the name of the album I'm currently cranking into my brain. I just put it on my Ipod today. I can't believe it took this long, it's an unreal rock album. I also just put the first Beatles album I've ever had on my Ipod. Abbey Road. Gotta have some Beatles.Okay, write from the perspective of the music. Allow the vibe, the tuneage, the utter rip in these chord changes to guide your pen. I'm listening to the song "No One Knows," which is song two on Songs For the Deaf by QOTStoneage. I'm ready. I'm feeling it. Here it comes. I'm frozen. Nothing. Zero. Locked at the keyboard. I feel stupid. I'm not really going to let the music drive my words and then post them. How embarrassing. Big guitars, drums and vocals. Her legs, yes her legs. They were long and sort of…shiny in a shiny sort of Marshal amp way.

The phone still hasn't rung. My editor is probably asleep. The book wore her out. Or bored her silly. I glance at the phone. I lift it to see if there's a dial tone. She's been trying to call me for three days but keeps getting a busy signal. All she wants to tell me is that it's the finest piece of contemporary fiction that her eyes have ever had the privilege to read. Good book, bad book, decent book, awesome book, shitty book, historic book? Waiting and waiting for information that might change your life or your notion of what your life should be, is something I'm realizing I'm getting used to. It, like so much that occurs in this career choice of mine, must be done and handled alone. Waaa, waaa.The song, "Songs for the Dead," is cranked and rockin' right now. Massive Dave Grohl drumming. Is he standing to hit them that hard? Who's the lead singer, I forget his name but he's great. He's currently screaming this vocal that is interrupted by this choir-esque AHHHH-ing and these small but raging bursts of guitar. It makes me want to write about….um, it makes me want to write about…a storm, yeah, a big-ass storm, yes, it's raining, yeah, it's raining so hard on the roof of a tiny suburban home. The person who lives there is a very dangerous and very disturbed man of only thirty. Just above the sound of pounding rain, I hear a…I hear a table saw, no, a router. WHAT'S HE BUILDING IN THERE? I say, WHAT THE HELL'S HE BUILDING IN THERE?!!! See Tom Waits' – spoken word rendition of "What's He Building in There?"on his second to last album, "Mule Variations."

Just an unreal ending to this last song, Song For the Dead. It comes to a thunderous and complete stop, waits five seconds and goes back into it even harder until Dave G. just goes absolutely ape and finishes the fucker standing, yes standing, with the symbols in each of his outstretched hands. Unk!!!!!

In the seventeen days, nine hours and eleven minutes since I sent my manuscript to

New York

, I decided to take my camera out of the closet and see if I could be artistic without a pen or keyboard. It's a Nikon, N80, and no it's not digital. I'm a hold out, a dinosoaur, yes, but a hold out for the integrity of the non-dig picture. Sure, by the time I finish this blog entry, there will be a newer, smaller, flatter, digital camera/phone/fax/computer/strap-on that will make my beloved camera obsolete and lonely and sad. But the point is, when I walk out the door with my camera, I see everything as a potential photograph, so I'm way more tuned into the small and seemingly unseen corners and beauties and even dangers of our existence. Huh?

Oh, the phone. It's my editor. Hello? Nope, a recorded voice. A robot calling to tell me about investments I should be making. Not kidding. F-off robot.

Another thought. The remake of The Poseidon Adventure, which I saw on a plane, was a letdown for me. Please see the original which is actually an unbelievable film considering there wasn't an ounce of computer generated special effects and there's no part of the "ship-flip" scene that doesn't look seamless. And Gene Hackman as the preacher who clashes with a fiery Ernest Borgnine and tries to save Shelley Winters from drowning. In this 06 version, Richard Dreyfus, Kurt Russell and a host of other actors willing to stay wet for six months of shooting in a tank in

Hollywood

, all attempt to survive the unsurvivable. Bottom line, the remake of Poseidon is about the ability we now have to paint pictures with computers and the willingness of actors to spend months in wet clothing. The original is about a relationship between a preacher and God. I won't give it away, but…God wins.

P.S. Next day. My editor called. It's very good news. I have another draft to write (always the case) but it won't take too long. I'll go disappear for awhile and soon I'll have a better sense of when my next book will be out there. Thanks for all your kind e-mails and for being so supportive. The holidays approach. First turkey, then Santa, then 2007. Deep breathes people. I'm sensing a year of change.